Hello dear friends,
it's that time again, although I don't think that this email will be quite as long. Oh well, maybe that is for the best. Anyway.....
Two days ago me and the rest of the group went our separate ways. My foot was hurting me and I decided to take a day off while everyone else went to Jerusalem. I had a pretty nice day though. After getting some sunscreen and a notebook (which opens from the back since it's Israeli) I went to hang out at a beachside cafe and read - to keep off my foot. It was pretty nice to just people watch and relax. I ordered some iced coffee and a watermelon and lost myself in a Murikami book. I was reading for a little while when I suddenly realized that I was being watched. I turned to look in the direction of my table and saw a black cat sitting on my table next to me and just watching me with those big green eyes. When she saw me looking she started cleaning herself and still chilled on my table for about 15 minutes. She wasn't after my food or drink, so we just hung out. It felt really cool.
I wrote for a bit afterwards and then went back to reading. A little while later two guys sat in front of me. Apparently they went to the beach to conduct a business meeting of sorts. One guy was French and the other was an American I think. They had the weirdest meeting ever. They started off by discussing if they shopped for underwear in Israel and whether or not Israeli underwear was better and cheaper. Eventually they got to business and I tuned them out for a while. Another interesting thing was that the American guy kept getting personal phone calls and taking them right in the middle of everything. Business is definitely more relaxed here. I say that especially since the French guy at one point took most of his clothes off and just chilled in his boxer briefs. At that point they seriously started messing with the general vibe of the place and I left the beach for home. I just had a very relaxing day. I went to bed at around 10:30 and the rest of the group didn't come home till 1 am.
Their trip was of course more exciting. They went into one cigar store in Jerusalem - Ralph is a cigar fan- and talked with the owner. It seems like in the late 90s a suicide bomber went into that very store and blew himself up. The owner happened to be in the states at the time but his brother was there. Fortunately the brother is Ok, the guys saw him too. Another cool thing that happened is while they were all eating they saw a music video being filmed right on the street by where they were. The singer is very famous in Israel. Daniel something. I'm horrible with names so I don't remember his full name. But overall lots of adventures. A good day. since I wasn't with them the guys left the old city and Yod Vashem for another day which was very nice of them. I think they will tell you guys more in their own emails.
Yesterday everyone stayed in Tel Aviv and took it pretty easy which was just fine with me. In the morning we went to an art fair/market type of a place. some of the jewelry there was really pretty, but it was definitely overpriced. We met Olya's coworker Becky and her husband Yael and hung out with them for a while. I also bought some Israeli table cloths at the market, so mom you are all set :-).
We came back from the market and after a little rest went to the beach. Tel Aviv has an insane amount of jellyfish. It’s crazy. It you walk by the shore you just see a crazy amount of them washed up on the shore. I did my whole cafe by the beach thing again since I didn't want to get my foot dirty, but the rest hung out closer to the water. Ralph and Alex got stung by the jellyfish, but they are both fine. We all also played this paddleball game that's really popular here. It's basically like catch, but with wooden paddles. You get pretty into it. Olya got a massage by a creepy beach massage guy. When he started he brushed her off with a bristled brush, which I thought was hilarious. I guess you had to be there. He did it in a very nonchalant manner like he was brushing crumbs off the table.
In the evening we went to a place called the canyon arena. It's on a marina and a pretty posh part of town. The really rich older crowd lives there. While we were eating we saw one of the cutest kitties ever. Ralph had me throw her some of his fish. She loved us. I forgot to mention earlier that there are cats all over Israel, especially Tel Aviv. People just feed them periodically so they survive pretty well on their own. It's nice to see, a lot of them are really sweet and cute. We walked around a bit after dinner, but the place was practically dead by 11 so me went home and prepared for a long day.
Today we went to Jerusalem again, this time I went with, but Ilyusha decided to spend the day with relatives. We started off at Yod Vashem and it took us over 4 hours there. They have rebuilt and added to it since the last time I was there 2 years ago. Overall it was not an easy thing to walk through but I'm glad we did it. It was definitely something that needs to be done when you are in Jerusalem.
After we ate lunch we headed for the old city. We walked around quite a bit before we made it to the Western Wall. We went to our opposite sides and did our thing. On my way from the wall I saw a couple who were getting married close to it. Ralph suggested that we go to the Christian quarter since it was relatively important to him. We went out of a different gate and suddenly everything was a little off. It took us only a few minutes to realize what it was... We accidentally stumbled into the Muslim quarter instead. We hightailed it out of there at the speed of lightning and consulted a map on the safe Jewish side of things.
We went to the Christian quarter through the Jewish one, which was significantly safer. It was nice to walk around the old city. We saw an old synagogue that was blown up by the Arabs in 1948. It was highly massive. Very cool to check out. When we made it to the Christian quarter I bought this holy water cross thing that I promised to one of my coworkers and Ralph bought some rosaries. We also saw the place where Jesus’ tomb was. I think it was on the Greek Orthodox domain. That basically concluded the old city for us. We walked back through the Armenian quarter, so I guess we saw it all.
On the way home we got lost as usual. It's crazy. Maps don't help you. You're on one street and suddenly you look at the miniscule street sign and realize that you are no longer on any place that you see on the map/ It usually takes us 30 minutes to find our house. Today we resorted to randomly shouting for directions to the cars around us on stoplights. It's fine though. Adds a little flavor of adventure to everything. We finished off by having dinner at a Cuban place then going to an internet cafe.
And here we are my friends, all caught up. You will hear from me in a few days with stories about the Galilee, and the clubbing in Israel. See you next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment